Bookends: Garber’s & Harbor Freight

I was going to check out Cape’s new Harbor Freight store the other night, but I got there too late.

As I was driving through Town Plaza Shopping Center, my eye was drawn to a big, red Garber’s sign. It’s nice to know that it’s still in business.

I did a post in 2014 about stores that were around in 1954 when Charles Garber founded Garber’s Men’s Store. It moved to the Town Plaza Shopping Center in 1960, the same year that Pop’s A&W Drive-In opened.

Charles Garber retired in the early 1970s. Newlyweds Rodney and Dimple Bridges bought it. Bridges said in a 2011 Missourian interview that Cape had nine men’s stores when Garber’s was founded. Today, it’s the only one left standing.

On the opposite end

The new Harbor Freight, is located at the opposite end of the Plaza from Garber’s, where the AMC Town Plaza 5 Cinema used to be. It’s a bigger store than what I’m used to in Florida.

Drool mop-up on Aisle 3

I told one of the guys at the cash register that I thought they would have to wipe up the drool when I took B-in-Law John to my Florida store. “Funny you would say that,” he said. “We joked that were were going to have to mop the floor here on opening day.”

I managed to avoid temptation on my first visit, but I’ll be back when I crank up a project that needs some tools or parts that don’t have to last a lifetime. (Of course, when you reach my advanced age, it’s possible that the stuff will outlive me.)

Garber’s Men’s Store

Garber's Men's WearTerry Hopkins’ box of his dad’s General Sign Company photos produced this Garber’s Men’s Store sign. Peeking out from the bottom is “Gladish,” which would have to be Gladish-Walker Furniture Company. I was trying to figure out where the store was located, but more about that later.

Garber’s founded in 1954

The Missourian’s A Century of Commerce had these business notes for 1954:

  • Lester Rhodes bought Orpheum Theater Building on Good Hope Street to convert it to business use.
  • Rigdon Laundry’s equipment was sold to Tipton’s Whiteline Laundry Inc.
  • Sunset Motel on Highway 61 North was sold to St. Louis investors.
  • Charles Garber founded Garber’s men’s store.
  • Star Vue Drive-In Theater, large enough for 600 parked automobiles, opened.
  • Pletcher & Haynes Sinclair Service Station opened on Highway 61West.
  • Hobb’s Grill No. 3 on Broadway, formerly Wilson’s Cafeteria, opened.
  • Cape Manufacturing Co., North Main Street, handling Maxine equipment, was incorporated.

Moved to Town Plaza in 1960

There was a lot of activity in 1960:

  • Charles N. Harris founded Atlas Plastics.
  • B & J Refrigeration opened as partnership between Marshall Bailey and Leon Jansen; later became Jaymac Equipment Co.
  • Montgomery Mobile Home Sales opened.
  • Pop’s A & W Drive-In opened.
  • Professional Business Systems was founded by Lloyd Lorberg.
  • Charles Garber moved Garber’s, men’s clothing store, to Town Plaza.
  • The old Joseph Sciortino Grocery Store building in 600 block of Good Hope Street was razed.
  • Making room for parking lot, 103-year-old brick mill building on Water Street was razed.
  • Model Grocery closed, after serving Girardeans 39 years. The last location was at 521 Broadway.
  • Ruh’s Market, in operation 53 years, closed.
  • Victor L. Klarsfeld, owner of Rialto Theater, purchased Broadway Theater building.
  • New 17,000-foot tower of KFVS-TV went into operation.
  • B.I. Howard purchased Wulfers’s building on Broadway. It housed Howard Athletic Goods Co.

Gladish-Walker Furniture formed in 1932

633 Good Hope collapse 08-08-2014I found some ads for Gladish-Walker Furniture that said it was located at 633 Good Hope. That means that Garber’s was located a couple of doors to the east in a building that was constructed at about the same time, 1880 or so based on information in the National Register of Historic Places.

I thought 633 Good Hope sounded familiar. It’s because I did a story about the building collapsing this summer. Garber’s would have been in the building to the left. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Garber’s sold to Rodney and Dimple Bridges

Town Plaza Shopping Center 04-16-2011When Charles Garber retired in the early 1970s, the business was sold to Frank Hamra, who had Hamra’s Men’s Store in Anna, Ill. He hired Rodney Bridges, 20 and a newlywed, to manage it. A year later, Bridges and his wife, Dimple, bought the store. For more detail, you can read an interview with Bridges in the March 14, 2011, Missourian.

When Garber’s was founded, Bridges pointed out, Cape had nine men’s stores in town; today Garber’s is the only one left. The store used to carry all the big name brands, but the chains and outlet stores have taken over that business. To survive, he said, he has to bring in lines that aren’t shown everywhere. In the last 40-plus years, the store has been expanded twice and remodeled four times, increasing from 1,500 square feet to 4,300.

Garber’s has a clean-looking website, showing that the store has been around for awhile, but it keeps up with the times. The shopping center photo above was taken in 2011. That space was occupied by something called Arcade in a photo in a 1962 Girardot advertisement.

I have to confess that I usually counted on Wayne Golliher at Al’s Shops to put clothes on my frame.